


Interim

by Fistful_of_Gamma_Rays



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-03-04
Packaged: 2019-03-07 20:43:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13443021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fistful_of_Gamma_Rays/pseuds/Fistful_of_Gamma_Rays
Summary: The City falls, but the dead rest uneasy.





	1. Chapter 1

Hawthorne watches the Last City fall from a distance, through the scope of a rifle, lying belly-down in the rubble of a hide halfway up a cliff face. Further back in the cave, Louis is hooded so he doesn’t panic, but she can hear the ratcheting scrape of his claws as he shifts nervously back and forth. Hawthorne doesn’t come by the City much these days, but she had a few Golden Age finds to trade in and an itch for food she can’t make herself. It’s usually a quiet trip. The FOTC keep the riffraff out. But tonight she’d woken up to the heavy drone of engines, so loud they shook through her bones from ten thousand feet up. She’d wasted no time in getting herself the hell out of the open. The smart thing to do, she knows, would be to hightail it out into the wilds, find some hole in one of the old cities and wait it out. The City’s got its Guardians and its militia - it can take care of itself. She’s just got herself and her rifle and Louis. But she somehow found herself scrambling up the path to high ground anyways, eyes pinned on the sky.

It’s some twenty minutes later, and she still can’t look away. The storm’s died down to a driving, steady rain. The sky over the City glows with light reflected off the fires below, thick with ships and debris. From this distance, the Traveler fills nearly an eighth of the horizon, white and inert as always. There’s something attached to it - a machine spread out across its surface like a hand. Hawthorne doesn’t think much of the Traveler one way or another, but she doesn’t like the sight of the Cabal machine clutching it. The Guardians don’t like it much either - she can see them diving at it, little ships too small to be anything but personal vessels, flying singly or in pairs and trios, snapping fire at the Cabal gunships and blooming bright with Light when some warlock gets creative. But the Cabal have put the massive weight of their armada around their machine, and little gets through.

Without warning, there is a vast noise like something tearing. Behind her, Louis shrieks, but she can barely hear it, can barely breathe through the low snarl filling the air. Red lines race across the Traveler, spreading out like cuts in its skin. Something kicks in her chest when they meet, a sensation like her ears popping with altitude. A dozen of the little Guardian ships fall out of the sky and the ones that stay aloft falter, dipping towards the ground in unison before leveling out. Some rejoin the fight, but some break off, wheeling towards the City’s ramparts, and Hawthorne knows that whatever has just occurred has decided the battle.

She stays there anyways, and watches. It takes nearly six hours for the fighting to end. When Hawthorne breaks off, it’s almost dawn, and the City is grey and still under the heavy shadow of the armada, lights out but for Cabal searchlights. She stands, feeling her knees creak and pop under her. Behind her, Louis shifts on his perch, the noise loud in the pre-dawn stillness. She needs to leave. It won’t be long before the Cabal have patrols out, and the Fallen will come in on their heels once they get wind of easy pickings in the area. This is no place to linger.

She weighs that thought, and thinks about the poor bastards out there who’ve lived their whole lives in the closest thing to a safe place anyone’s got left. With a curse, she shoulders her pack and straps her gauntlet on. Louis steps onto her wrist, and Hawthorne begins a long, cautious walk towards the City.


	2. Chapter 2

At about twenty miles outside the City walls, Hawthorne’s private comm gets a text-only message from Devrim Kay. He’s a good man - good company when she’s crossed paths with his patrols, and doesn’t put on the high-and-mighty airs some City folk do when talking to strays like her. She’d stopped by his office to share a meal not two days ago. Someone she’d call a friend. The message is short and to-the-point. “Are you still out there?” There’s a set of coordinates attached.

Hawthorne sends a terse reply and makes her way to them on foot. It’s close enough, and the hopper’s too visible. She lets Louis find his own way - he’s smart enough to stay out of trouble and fond enough of free meals and head scratches to come back. The site turns out to be the bank of a stream cut deep into a shrubby hill. It’s a good place for someone in cover to shoot unwanted trespassers. She hesitates briefly, and then steps out into the open, slow and steady. After a moment, the bushes at the top of the bank rustle, and Devrim emerges and climbs down to meet her. When he’s in range, he clasps her hand and gives her a tired grin.

“Suraya. It’s good to see you. Wasn’t sure you’d made it out in time.” 

“It’s good to see you, too,” she says, and means it. She hesitates, and then asks anyway. “How bad is it?”

His face falls and his voice turns clipped. “Bad,” he says, bluntly. “They got the drop on us and knocked us down before we knew it.” He hesitates. “Something happened at the Tower. The Vanguard fell off the comms in the middle of it. Got the order to evacuate soon after.” 

Something squirms under her ribs, and she thinks about those Guardian ships falling out of the sky when the Cabal did whatever they did to the Traveler. “I’m sorry,” she offers, lamely.

Devrim shakes his head sharply, and visibly hauls himself straight. “Don’t be,” he says crisply. He starts off down the creek bed, heading upstream, and Hawthorne follows, keeping an eye on the bank above them. “I had hoped you were still in the area. I’ve got company.”

“Company?”

“When the order came, we got as many civilians out as we could. There aren’t many of us, but…” He trails off and shrugs eloquently. “You know the wilds better than an old City-dweller like me. These people need somewhere to hide. We need somewhere to regroup. I was hoping you might know a place.”

They round a sharp corner, and Hawthorne gets her first glimpse of Devrim’s refugees. She spots a few familiar faces around the perimeter - people she knows as part of Devrim’s patrol. They’re set up for trouble, but they’re keeping their heads down. She doesn’t doubt there are more of them than she can see. The rest of the group is shoved as far as they can go into a deep overhang in the bank, huddled around a trio of survival tents. It’s a mix of people, mostly young and middle-aged. Maybe close to twenty including Devrim’s patrol group. She spots a few packs and what might be the stock of a rifle piled into the lee of a tent, but it won’t be enough to keep them warm and fed for more than a few days. The scene feels unnatural, dreamlike, like a shot out of a low-budget Collapse drama.

She shakes off the sense of unreality and focuses on the question. None of the places she usually stays in will shelter them. She sticks to herself and doesn’t need much. The old cities have the space and might be good places to hide, but they’re crawling with scavengers, of both the Fallen and human variety. There are outposts outside the City, but they live on the edge of their means, and none of them can afford to take in so many homeless City-dwellers.

The problem turns over in her mind. Distance, perhaps, is the most immediate concern. The rest can be dealt with in time, but she doubts the Cabal will take kindly to escapees. She thinks through the places on the edges of her travels, considering them one-by-one.

“The Farm might do,” she says at last. It’s not quite an outpost. Strays like her stop there often enough to keep the animals clean and fed and do a little bit of trading, but it’s too close to the Shard for people to want to settle there permanently. Devrim shoots her a questioning look, and she elaborates. “It’s in the EDZ. Can’t bring everyone over at once, but the hopper’s got enough fuel to do two trips.”

Something relaxes in the line of his shoulders and he lets out a breath. “Well, then. There’s no time to waste.”

 

They get their group of refugees to where Hawthorne’s parked the hopper over the course of a full day. Hawthorne finds the pace frustratingly slow, and sets herself the task of scouting ahead. If she’s honest with herself, it’s as much to buy herself space as it is to be helpful. She finds herself ill-at-ease with this many people. In the City, it’s different. Out here, she’s used to it being just herself and Louis, and can’t shake the feeling that they’ll be jumped at any moment.

Miraculously, they make it to the site untroubled, despite her fears. Half the group is bundled into the cramped cargo hold of Hawthorne’s hopper, and she plots a swift course to the Farm’s coordinates. It’s a long, tense ride. She’s got the comm on to the hold, but there’s not much talking going on back there, and Hawthorne herself can’t think of much else to say beyond an uninspiring “Buckle up!” Two hours later, she sets down on the Farm’s LZ, and her passengers disembark. She gets out too and points the most senior of Devrim’s people to the old house whose rooms are still in good shape. Thankfully, they seem to be the Farm’s only visitors at the moment - she’s not sure how kindly some of the drifters she’s known would take to City refugees squatting on their turf. She stays long enough to watch them begin to set up tents in the shelter of what remains of the old barn, and then gets back in the hopper to do it again.

By the time it’s done, the air is chill and damp and faintly grey with the first hint of dawn. She winds up at one of the pit fires, watching the flames leap and snap with Devrim, both of them too tired and too restless to sleep. Somewhere, Devrim has gotten a small kettle and is heating water. It comes to a rolling boil, and wordlessly, he fills two cups. She takes hers, and they sit quietly for a while. The sky is dark out here, even this close to daybreak, and she can only faintly make out the shape of the Shard looming up against the hills to the west. Louis is settled on the eaves of the house behind her, dead to the world. Aside from the spitting of the fire, it’s so quiet that she nearly startles when Devrim speaks.

“You saved a lot of lives today. We owe you a great deal.”

“I was just the taxi service.” It comes out choppier than she means it to. 

“Well. Thank you,” says Devrim, and mercifully lets it lie.

“What will you do now?” she asks, after a moment. 

He seems to settle into himself, leaning in towards the warmth of the fire. “I don’t know what the civilians will do, but the squad talked it over. We’re going to fight back. Get as many people out of the City as we can. Show those bastards we’re not done yet.” His hands are gripped tight around the cup, knuckles white in the glare of the firelight.

She gives him a slow nod, and tamps down the bitterness welling up underneath her thoughts. He has the look of a man who’s found a hill to die on. After a moment, Devrim lets out a heavy breath and shifts slightly. His hands deliberately relax their grip on the cup.

“Mark’s still in the City, you know.”

She didn’t know, doesn’t know Mark except by his association with Devrim, but can’t suppress a flinch. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. He’s still alive.” He inhales and seems to straighten up in his seat. “We have a private comms channel. He thinks he can get people and supplies out of the City. We can get them away, get them somewhere safe like you did today. Set up a resistance.” He pauses, watching her carefully. “We could use your help.”

Hawthorne’s no fool - she had an inkling this was coming. Devrim’s a wise sort - he knows she’s no soldier, and he gets better than most City-dwellers that the City doesn’t mean to her what it does to him. She could walk away from this and he wouldn’t be happy, but he wouldn’t bear a grudge either.

She lets the idea cross her thoughts, but discards it almost immediately. She tries not to indulge in self-deception, and she made her choice the moment she left that hole in the cliff. The City doesn’t mean to her what it does to Devrim, but it still means something. 

She stares into the mug of tea in her hands, steeped so long it’s near-black by now, and presses her lips together.

“I’ll help how I can,” she tells Devrim.

“That’s all I can ask,” he says.

They spend the remainder of the watch quietly, passing the tea-kettle back and forth between them until the sun rises.


	3. Chapter 3

It’s all a mess. The Farm’s got basic facilities, but it’s not a real outpost, and Hawthorne and Devrim’s patrol have their work cut out in making it habitable for a sizable number of people on a more permanent basis. The water cleaner’s got the capacity, but it’s not set up to actually serve this many people. The latrines need to be expanded. The rooms in the old barn need to repaired and divided into barracks. The Farm’s stored food and supplies need to be tallied and rationed, and somehow, they need to add to them. Devrim’s patrol are capable, and Hawthorne knows how to fend for herself. A few of the civilians have spent time in the FOTC or immigrated into the City as adults and can help. But most of them were born in the City and have gone their entire lives without knowing how to set up camp or shoot a rifle. Hawthorne finds it baffling and frightening by turns. She shows a few of them what to do and has them show the rest. Some of them start coming to her with questions, which spooks her more than she lets on.

She clears a space for herself up on the second floor of one of the old outhouses. It’s quiet, away from the main quarters. No one makes anything of it, but she makes sure to leave the west wall open to the sky. It lets Louis come and go as he likes, and makes it less likely that anyone will try to move in next to her.

Two days in, a group of drifters comes through. Thankfully, Hawthorne knows this crew. Braca’s group aren’t exactly trustworthy, but they’re not malicious either. They’re not the sort to shoot on sight, at least, and Braca’s level enough to hear Hawthorne out.

“Huh,” she says afterward, chewing at stem of the old pipe clenched in her teeth. Hawthorne’s never seen her light it, but it’s been part of Braca’s presence the entire time she’s known her. “Word gets out, your Cityfolk are going to be easy pickings.”

Hawthorne shrugs. It’s true enough, but there’s not much any of them can do about it. “We’ll handle it.”

Braca chews on her pipe some more, and absently tugs at the end of one of her grizzled braids. “City’s fallen. Wouldn’t have believed it my lifetime.” She lets out a sigh like a bellows. “We’ll stick around a bit. Your people need the help.”

Hawthorne is caught so flatfooted that she barely manages to get out a thanks with a level voice. Braca’s polite enough not to call her on it.

Mark is as good as his word. On the next night, they make the trip to the City outskirts to pick up a load of desperately needed supplies and another dozen people lucky enough to have made it out. It’s Hawthorne and Devrim in Hawthorne’s hopper, and one of Braca’s crew in another, a quiet Awoken man named Carric with a nose that’s been broken so many times its bridge is bent in two different directions. Neither she nor Devrim are entirely comfortable with his presence, but the extra hopper makes the difference between one trip and two.

The operation goes smoothly, against all odds. Most of the newcomers are FOTC, and get themselves and the supplies into the hoppers with a minimum of fuss. Once, a Cabal ship pings the radar at the horizon, and they’re forced to go dark and quiet, waiting until it slips away back to the City. They work faster after that, and soon it’s just Hawthorne and Carric on the ground, making final checks before takeoff. In the distance, the Traveler is still dark, swarming with Cabal ships like a carcass crawling with flies. Carric pauses before getting back into the cockpit of his hopper to stare at it. After a moment, he makes a sign with his left hand that she doesn’t know and turns to spit on the ground.

“Last place that was ours, and they take it. Fuck ‘em.”

He clambers into his hopper, leaving Hawthorne alone outside, staring at the distant walls of the City. After a moment, she turns and spits too.

“Yeah. Fuck ‘em.” She blinks away a faint, senseless prickling at her eyes and gets into the hopper.

* * *

 

The success of that first supply run triggers something in the camp. Part of it is simply people absorbing themselves in work to avoid thinking, but there’s something else running under the surface too. People are calling it “the Farm” now. It’s not just “the camp” anymore. Supplies are tallied and distributed. The patrol organizes a watch. The walls of the old farmhouse are patched and its basement cleared out. The civilians, quietly and without fuss, set up a shooting range at the shore of the lake and grimly practice. More drifters trickle in. Mark has apparently made contacts as well - their next supply run is set to rendezvous some distance from the City. Overall, Hawthorne has the uneasy sense that she is standing atop a volcano, the ground under her feet starting to bulge with pressure.

Somehow, the civilians have latched onto her as their authority for survival in the wilds. Devrim defers to her on Farm resourcing and maintenance. Devrim’s patrol have their own chain of command, but they leave her to handle the liaison with Braca’s group. Braca appears content with the arrangement. It leaves Hawthorne stretched thin, tracking a dozen tasks at a time and itching to do at least one of them with her own two hands.

When it’s time for their next supply run, she’s eager to go. Their new rendezvous point is at the foot of the mountains, high, hilly country she knows well. It’s good cover, hard to navigate for Cabal, but passable for smaller creatures. The coordinates point them to the mouth of a canyon, where an icy stream cuts its way free of the rock and broadens into a shallow river. There’s just barely enough room to land the hoppers at the site.

The new group is well-equipped - Mark’s smugglers know their business. There’s enough food and fuel to keep the Farm afloat a while longer. The people this time are a mix of FOTC and civilians. They quiet and efficient, good at moving themselves in a hurry, and Hawthorne doesn’t need to do much to direct them beyond opening up the hopper’s cargo bay and pointing them to the tie-downs and hardpoints. She swaps places with one of the guards on the perimeter for the chance to gain a little breathing space. Up here, the air is thin and cold, clear and clean like strong alcohol. It numbs the desperate busyness of the last week, and she’s glad enough to stay still and breathe it in for a while.

She’s the first to notice when a blot of shadow separates itself from the scree of the slope to her right. At this distance, she can’t make out much detail, but whoever it is is humanoid and built to her scale. Doesn’t guarantee it’s a friendly, but it does put the odds on her side. She gestures to the man keeping watch with her.

“Evan. Just saw something over there. Keep an eye on me while I check it out.”

“Yes, ma’am.” She shoots him a look, and he tries again. “You got it, boss.”

He calls it in to the others and comes around to cover her, and she moves up slow and cautious, rifle up and safety disengaged. Once she gets a little closer, her eyes adjust to the shadow of the cliff, just in time to watch her target take an inelegant stumble off a ledge that’s higher up than it probably looks from the top. At this range, she can make out enough detail to know what she’s dealing with. She lowers her gun and thumbs the safety back on.

The new party is exo. Light frame, a broad scuff across the facial plates over one eye, armor that had been high quality at some point in the recent past. A battered Ghost transmats itself into place over the stranger’s shoulder, and Hawthorne’s thoughts tumble over each other and lock into a new pattern.

There’s been no news from the Vanguard since the City’s fall, no Guardian presence on Devrim’s FOTC band.

She moves forward to help the stranger up, but can’t quite keep the sting out of her voice when she greets them.

“Guardian, huh? Looking a little worse for wear, there.”

The stranger takes her hand and levers themself to their feet. Their Ghost spins its tines in agitation. “We’ve been better,” it says, despondently.

Upright, the stranger eyes the bustle behind her. “What’s going on?” There’s a buzz of static under their voice. She doesn’t know enough exo to know if that’s normal.

She shrugs, with far more nonchalance than she feels. “We’re getting as many people and supplies into the hoppers as we can, and then we’re getting them the hell away from the City.” The stranger goes very still, but their Ghost lets out a small, hurt sound. “There’s a ride if you want it.”

The stranger breaks their stillness, a deliberate shift of their shoulders as if resettling a weight. “Where to?”

“EDZ,” she says bluntly. “A bunch of us holed up in an outpost over there. We won’t turn down the help if you can lend a hand.”

Louis chooses that moment to leave his perch in the nearest tree and land heavily on Hawthorne’s shoulder. A long, silent glance passes between Guardian and Ghost.

“We’re in,” the Ghost says at last.

“Then welcome aboard.”

**Author's Note:**

> I write slow, so this will update slow, but this game and its lore got me good.


End file.
